


Midnight Clarity

by potentiality_26



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (US TV 1954)
Genre: Christmas, Episode Related, First Kiss, M/M, Missing Scene, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Watson didn’t sound as if he was going to stop talking any time soon.  I stopped listening around when he told me that sometimes he thought I needed a nurse.  I stood by what I had done, but I wouldn’t deny that I was rattled now- yes, by the neat bullet holes in that dummy’s forehead, but perhaps a little more by the fear in his voice.  If I had to choose between his safety and his feelings, his safety would always win- but it was a bitter calculation, all the same.  Sometimes I really was afraid that I would drive him away- with my tricks, my experiments, my disguises, my recklessness, my violin.  Other times, I was afraid that I wouldn’t.After John Norton's second arrest, things aren't yet back to normal.





	Midnight Clarity

**Author's Note:**

> It's Christmas, so I wrote a "The Case of the Christmas Pudding" tag. It may not even be the last because this episode is A Lot. Title is a bit of a play on "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."

Watson didn’t sound as if he was going to stop talking any time soon.  I stopped listening around when he told me that sometimes he thought I needed a nurse.  I stood by what I had done, but I wouldn’t deny that I was rattled now- yes, by the neat bullet holes in that dummy’s forehead, but perhaps a little more by the fear in his voice.  If I had to choose between his safety and his feelings, his safety would always win- but it was a bitter calculation, all the same.  Sometimes I really was afraid that I would drive him away- with my tricks, my experiments, my disguises, my recklessness, my violin.  Other times, I was afraid that I wouldn’t. 

There were things not yet hashed out between us, and suddenly I didn’t think I could stand that any longer.

He was still rambling, and I closed the distance between my desk and his chair in a kind of daze.  I rested my hand on the back of the chair- where his arm was slung just a moment before- and bent over him to catch his mouth in a kiss.  He was between words, lips slack with surprise and chilly from his fruitless journey. 

He wore a look of such blank shock when I drew back that it was almost amusing.  Almost.  In the silence that followed, I focused on my own hand where it rested on his chair, the knuckles turning white against the wood.  There was a decent chance that I had driven him away, now.  I did my best to convince myself that it would be for the best if I had- and that, stay or go, he must at least _understand_.

“Holmes,” he said finally, swallowing.  I watched his throat work out of the corner of my eye.

"Yes?" I said, more evenly than I would have thought myself capable of just then.  Perhaps it was working.  Perhaps I had convinced myself after all. 

"Did you hang mistletoe?"

"No," I said.  "No I didn't."  It would have been clever of me if I had.  "I... only wanted you to see why I... why I can't put you in that kind of danger."  I swallowed myself, mouth remarkably dry.  "Do you?  Do you see?"  I had considered us partners from the beginning, and besides the inherent kindness and courage which had made me fall for him to begin with there was no denying that Watson was useful to me.  I knew he considered himself my protector, and I had let him.  I had let myself come to rely on it, in fact- to feel confident, perhaps complacent, in the knowledge that I now had something more than my wits to fall back on.  But the moment I began to be really afraid, all I could think of was keeping him safe- and whatever lies I had to tell to that end, I would tell them, and whatever risks I had to take alone, I would take them.  For him. 

I could feel him still staring at me.  Out of the corner of my eye I watched as that blankly numb surprise from which he had initially brought up mistletoe melted into a deeper astonishment.  Was it how I felt about him that he couldn’t believe, or was it something else?  Something better?

One of his hands curled around the front of my dressing gown and he pulled me back down to his mouth.  If my kiss had been quick, more a declaration than a caress, his was not.  I was nearly overbalanced by the sucking pressure of his lips, the soft prickle of his mustache, the slow strokes of his tongue.  And when I went weak at the knees he was there to catch me, as he always when I let him.  He braced me and pulled me closer, tugging until I gave in as much to my own desire as to his insistence and settled into his lap- something I confess I had imagined doing many times.  And he felt as good as I had imagined he would- warm beneath his chilled clothes- warm and solid and exactly right. 

When he finally broke the kiss, Watson rested his forehead against mine and shut his eyes briefly before he met my own fiercely.  “Do _you_ see?” he whispered.  “Why you can't keep me out of it?”

His arms drew around my waist as he pressed little kisses to my lips.  I let go of the chair back at last and buried my hand in his hair.  It was soft beneath my fingers, easily disarranged, and I had imagined doing that many times as well. 

His smile the next time he caught my eye was warm but faintly reproving.  I was not sure if I could bring myself to admit, now, that it had never occurred to me he could possibly feel as I did, but perhaps I had admitted it without realizing.  He was right to look reproving.  I, of all people, should have been able to see what was right in front of me- but I had not.  Even when I annoyed him, he always made it clear that he saw himself as my partner as much as I did.  Had I really believed he was not my partner in _this_?  “You have to let me help you.  If something were to happen that I could possibly have prevented...”  He tightened his grip on me.  “If something were to happen at all... Holmes, I just don't know-”

He was rambling again, so I kissed him again.  It had worked very well before, after all.       

His hair tumbled across his forehead where I had mussed it as we kissed.  When I drew back I brushed it aside.  His look then was as if he was not yet finished taking me to task, but he was nevertheless content- for now- to have me where he could hold on to me.  The ease of things between us had taken me so by storm from the start that I had hardly realized not everything would be so easy.  Letting him put himself at risk when I could bear the brunt instead certainly wouldn't.  But he would give me the time.  “We will have to work out just how our friend escaped today,” I said after a while, when the world beyond him and me intruded on my mind again for the first time.  “Do you suppose it's too late tonight?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding rather pleased about it.  He drew me closer, until my chest was flush to his.  “Much too late.”  He sought my lips again, and I met him.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com) or [dreamwidth](https://potentiality-26.dreamwidth.org).


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